Title:Tale as old as timeAuthor: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
submissionadictRating: PGPairing: OnesidedPete/Spencer & Pete/Ryan. Patrick/Pete Ryan/William Brendon/SpencerPOV:BrendonSummary: Brendon, his mother told him, had not always been a teacup.Disclaimer: i solomnly swear i am up to no good. also, this is a bunch of lies pretending that they have a chance in hell of being truth.Beta: the lovely takkatakkatakka Author Notes: sometimes ideas get stuck in my head and bounce around my skull until i write them down in detail. Once upon a time, when he was a day old babe, and just getting to grips with being born, an old woman had visited the castle. She was as ugly as all the witches in Brendon’s fairytale books, which should have been the first warning for their strawberry-haired master. Crown Prince Patrick of Illinois received her in the drawing room, not bothering to get up from behind his piano.
The prince, you see, was a musical genius, whose fame was renowned throughout the world, and the old woman wasn’t very happy about it- before Patrick, SHE had been the best singer in the land - but the prince didn’t know this. So Prince Patrick gave the old woman lodgings for the night, and asked the gardener’s son to put a bouquet of roses by her bedside (as all visitors received mandatory to asking for shelter in Castle Ramen).
At supper that night, the old woman tried to persuade the prince to give up his gift of song. She tried, and tried, and tried. Asking him three times to give it up. This, Brendon reflects, should have been his second warning – all things magical come in threes.
When he refused the third time, staring the woman down with hard eyes - stating that his gift was all he had left of his mother, who had been quite the singer - the old woman transformed into the most stunning enchantress, and cursed the whole of Castle Ramen to live out their days as their station. One by one, maids turned into living brooms, stable boys into shovels and brushes, gardeners into hedge clippers and trowels, and Brendon and his mother and his brothers and sisters into a tea service. The rest of his family said that the enchantress threw the Prince’s bouquet at his feet and transformed him into something other than his perfect self; she gave him the personality of a beast. But Brendon never believed that - to him Prince Patrick was still the handsome man that he once had been, strawberry hair, cherubim features, and an angelic voice; he couldn’t understand why everyone else shuddered away from Patrick’s presence when he’d never once been horrible to Brendon.
By his 18th year, Brendon had explored the whole castle, (including the forbidden West Wing, where the mystical roses had just started to bloom) and nothing surprised him anymore. That was, until the human boy stumbled through the front door on a seemingly normal day.
The Human was tall, and gangly, and wearing a lot of scarves. Brendon mused that, as humans went, he was rather pretty, but a bit odd; the first thing he had done upon running into Patrick’s castle had been block the door and slide down, still panting and muttering to himself.
Brendon decided to talk to him.
“Hello.”
The human looked around wildly.
“Who’s there?”
Brendon frowned. He was right in front of him.
“I’m down here. Look. Right in front of you, silly.”
The human finally caught on, and his eyes widened as he looked down at Brendon. After a second he shut them as tightly as he could, opened them again, shook his head, and repeated the process another couple of times.
“Fuck. I’m going mad. The Baron Pete has finally driven me loopy.”
Brendon cocked his cup to one side. Maybe this was natural human behaviour….
“I’m Brendon, Brendon Urie, what’s your name?”
The human looked at him blankly. “You’re a teacup. And you’re talking to me.”
Ah. So that was what was wrong. Brendon did a teacup version of a shrug. “My mamma says that the whole castle was put under an enchantment when I was just a babe. Apparently, I’ve not always been a teacup. Now, what did you say your name was?”
The human looked bemused. “Ryan Ross.”
“Well, Ryan Ross, why are you in Castle Ramen? How did you get here? We’ve never had a visitor before…”
Ryan blanched “Castle Ramen? You mean the one with the terrifying beas-“
It was at that moment that Prince Patrick appeared, stalked towards the human Ryan Ross and growled at him.
“Prince Patrick, this is Ryan Ross, he’s rather pretty, can we keep him do you think? It’d be fun to get him to tell us stories of the outside world, and everyone would be SO excited to have a REAL guest and oh! The horses could get ridden and the food eaten, and –“
“What did I tell you about talking too fast Brendon?” Patrick roared, amused.
Brendon stopped mid-flow and looked as sheepish as a teacup could manage. “Not to do it and to talk in a way that people can actually hear what I’m trying to tell them?”
Patrick grunted.
“But Prince Patrick! He’s really pretty! And everyone would love to have an excuse to have a party… and it’s not as if he could do any damage… he’s pretty scrawny…”
The human, Ryan, who had looked pretty terrified up to that point, shot a venomous glare at Brendon. “Watch who you’re calling ‘scrawny’, teacup. I’m still bigger than YOU.”
Brendon laughed. “Well of course. You’re human. I’m teacup. It’d be odd if there was a teacup bigger than you…”
Patrick watched the exchange, and made a decision.
“Fine,” He exclaimed grumpily. “He can stay. But he stays AWAY from the West Wing.”
This produced mixed reactions; an ecstatic, “YES! Wait till I tell everyone” from Brendon, and from Ryan a horrified, “What? NO! I have to go home! Spencer’s waiting for me, and if I don’t go home, then The Baron Pete will get him!”
Patrick growled a final, “Tough,” and swept out of the hall.
So far, Ryan had met Brendon’s mom, Gabe Saporta, the candlestick, and the head feather brush, William Beckett. Greta, his wardrobe, had decked him out with a swanky new outfit, and the kitchen was having a fit preparing a fancy meal for its guest.
Said guest however, was lying on his bed, unmoving.
In the local tavern, The Baron Pete slammed down his tankard and wailed. “WHY, why does he forsake me, Mikey?” he asked his lackey. “All I wanted to do was find out whether him and his ‘best friend,’” he spat out bitterly, “were a couple, and does he give me any answer? NO. Does he bat an eyelid to my threats, and taunts, and promises, NO. Does he swoon at my poetry? NO. HE RUNS AWAY. THE LITTLE FUCKER RAN OFF.”
Mikey went to comfort him with another tankard of ale. “Well, sir Baron,” he began “your poem, was… ah, how shall I say it - a little too forward, for the second day of knowing the youth?”
Pete mumbled into his ale. “But that’s when they normally swoon….”
“But sir Baron sir!” Mikey exclaimed, trying to diffuse the depression he sensed brewing. “It’s entirely possible that Mr Ross, being from somewhere else than here, did not understand your advances to be what they were. It’s quite likely that they aren’t as civilised as we are in the City, or that the youth is an anomaly of inconsequence.”
Ryan Ross sighed. He was stuck in a castle by a hyper teacup, and a beast who wasn’t really much of a beast after all - just a snarky, pissy man, with golden features. Ryan sighed again. Fingering the cuffs of his flowing shirt, he had to admit that Greta the Wardrobe had excellent taste – the artist shirt he was wearing had puffy sleeves, and made him look less angular than he actually was, and the tight-fitting tan trousers and knee high leather boots gave him a certain air of being in a romance novel. In short, he looked good. Damn good.
He sighed yet again. Spencer was going to kill him.
“Why so glum?” a melodious voice asked.
He sighed - again. “My best friend is out there, probably having to run away from the Baron Wentz because he thinks we’re “an item”, not childhood friends. Spencer’s going to be so pissed with me because I can’t tell him where I am, worried cause he might think I got captured” - Ryan made a funny face - “Well, captured by the Baron Wentz. And then the Baron Wentz is probably going to make Spencer his concubine, and I know how much Spencer would disagree with that man… I fear for his life.”
And then Ryan sighed again. “I have no idea why I’m telling you this. I don’t normally make a habit out of talking to household implements, but then again, this place isn’t exactly NORMAL is it?”
The voice didn’t reply.
Ryan looked up. He was alone.
Fuck. He really WAS going mad.
Patrick finished listening to William, the head ‘maid’ who had the melodious voice Ryan had unburdened himself to. He’d forgotten how complicated life could be when you were actively part of it, but at least the rest of the castle’s inhabitants were having fun.
“Fine,” he scowled, “I’ll assure his friend that the boy is safe. Happy now?”
William sidled up to him. “Very, thanks.”
Patrick rolled his eyes.
Shit like this did not happen in the city. Spencer scowled. He was currently barring the front door to the Ross household with as many heavy wooden items (of the bookcase persuasion) that he could find, just so that he could escape the mob The Baron Wentz had whipped up into a frenzy, with the promise of his creamy skin as payment for discovering the hiding place of one Ryan Ross. Spencer scowled again. Ryan, in his INFINITE wisdom, had got himself trapped in a creepy castle with talking furniture. And Spencer had just had an interesting conversation with the master of said castle via the bathroom mirror. The beast was almost as bitchy as he was. It was impressive, if not terrifying, that Ryan would get himself caught in a situation like that. It was a Ryan-like thing to do.
Spencer reminded himself daily of why he had a best friend; and none of his reasons included saving his sorry ass. Well, there was just one thing left to do. He thought, as the mob crashed through the front door.
Flee.
And - the safest place right now seemed to be the self same castle Ryan had gotten trapped in.
This shit just DOESN’T happen in the city.
Patrick watched the ice eyed boy enter the courtyard. Watched him rap on the door, watched him look upon the footstool that opened the door, and politely request entry. Totally unfazed, except for looking slightly pissed off.
‘Nothing for it’ he thought to himself ‘the boy’s gonna stay, I just know it. And Brendon’s gonna have a field day.’
He hated when life suddenly got a lot more interesting.
Brendon had indeed found Spencer even more entrancing than his friend Ryan. The three spent days roaming the castle, Brendon pointing out the most impressive bits and telling funny stories, and Spencer spent his time laughing and smiling and generally unwinding. Ryan spent his time watching his best friend be truly happy for the first time in his life, and was content.
“So Brendon,” Ryan said, eyelevel with the small teacup, “How did you get your chip?” He’d been wondering for a while.
Brendon’s smile became subdued. “The day we all became as we are,” he almost whispered, “I was one day old. I had to be carried everywhere, and as it so happened, my mother was holding me when the spell hit us. Teacups don’t have hands, or arms. I fell to the floor and got damaged.”
Ryan smiled sadly. “It just makes you more special. You’re not damaged Bren. Never damaged.”
Brendon half believed him.
Word was out that Ryan and Spencer were kidnapped and held hostage in the creepy castle rumoured to be the haunting ground of a horrible beast. Pete was immediately on his horse racing into the forest.
Five hours of circles and swearing later, the Baron Pete had managed to scale Castle Ramen’s walls by nothing but the moonlight, all the while grumbling about “stupid beautiful boys who get themselves locked up in towers where I can’t molest them.” And then he promptly landed in a rosebush.
It was then that he heard the most curious of sounds.
He was pretty sure it was singing.
He leaped out from under the rosebush, ready to confront the singer about their angelic voice, and then cart them off to the gaol with a wicked smile, when he heard another voice join the first.
“Sweet mab! They’ve got a CHOIR.”
And then he heard footsteps coming towards his direction.
Uh oh.
Ryan and Spencer had just walked into the rose garden, each arm linked, talking about Gabe the Candlestick’s romance of Travis the Garden trowel, when they heard a depressingly familiar voice
“Look, this is just NOT on!”
Hurriedly, they rushed into the scene just in time to see Patrick cast an unimpressed stare at The Baron Pete, and say in a growling voice, “And why, exactly, is this not on?”
The Baron Pete spluttered. “The SINGING! It’s against the law! And you! Manhandling me! A BARON. THAT is not on either! I could have you hanged for that!”
Patrick replied dryly, “And you are trespassing on my property. Shall I escort you out? Or shall I leave you to rot in my dungeons?”
The Baron Pete spluttered again. This was not the treatment he was used to. People were normally very quick to obey his wishes and desires - and the ones who weren’t, well, he broke them easily enough. (Although in the back of his head he recalled the slender brownhaired youth and his ice-eyed accomplice. They had treated him much the same as this stranger currently was.)
“Are you from the City?” he eagerly asked the man who had tied both of Pete’s arms around his back with rope.
“No.”
Damn. There went THAT hypothesis. So it wasn’t just City folk that had a flagrant disregard for earned respect, and the gentry… this was getting to be a problem.
“It’s probably better to let him go. He’ll only make a nuisance of himself, and to be honest, I don’t want him anywhere near his restraining order length of Ryan.”
That was a voice he knew. Pete turned his head to the side to see both the person he came to rescue, and his ice-eyed accomplice staring at him dispassionately.
He deflated a bit. He was so used to people pretending that they enjoyed his company.
“So you’re not locked up in a tower and kidnapped by a vicious beast, then?”
Ryan looked at him, startled “No. I’ve found nothing but kindness and courtesy here.”
Pete deflated even further. He’d always wanted to be the hero of the day; saving damsels in distress, and looking rather dashing whilst doing so. But no. He was denied that privilege time and time again.
The man holding his arms hostage gave a particularly vicious tug.
Pete winced. “I’ll say! No need to go violent, ginger. It would look rather unseemly against your alabaster skin…”
Everyone had stopped. Mouths opened in something akin to shock.
Except a voice coming from… somewhere. “I TOLD you. I TOLD YOU he wasn’t a beast like you said. He’s the most… well, second most, now, beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”
The Baron Pete located the voice in the strangest place, a… blushing teacup? Odd. “Is it me, or is that teacup rather embarrassed by that omission?” was the last thing he said, before everything went black.
“So what was he spouting about the singing?”
“Oh, it’s against the law to sing in Illinois. The penalty is death.”
Patrick fumed. That bloody enchantress had gone too far.
Pete woke up in a pastel coloured room on a bed bigger than his one at home (which was saying something) and let his situation catch up with him.
Moving to scratch his head he came upon the discovery that his arms were tied down.
Well, fuck.
Then the beautiful Ginger arrived.
Now he’d heard of Stockholm syndrome, but it usually took a couple of weeks right? Not just being pinned down with the sexiest male he’d ever set eyes on pacing the room like a tiger. He was entirely at the guy’s mercy.
Well now. If that thought didn’t make him horny then he wasn’t a Baron.
People had always said he was a dirty pervert.
“I’m going to let you go.”
Pete was confused
“Why?”
The ginger’s gaze smouldered in his direction.
“Because,” he said, with weight behind each word, “you are going to deliver a message to that jealous bitch of an enchantress.”
Ah.
The Baron Pete fumed. He hated having to play messenger boy. He also hated the enchantress with a undeniable passion; she may have made him a baron, but he got the idea that he wasn’t seeing what everyone else was. She was old. Yet everyone else seemed to think she still had beauty and grace.
He also had the idea that she made him do more corrupt things that he was normally likely to do. He wasn’t really so sleazy… well… not all the time, anyway.
“Ahh, my little Peter. What can I do for you today?”
Pete winced. And - that. Whenever she spoke, he got an INSTANT headache.
“I’m delivering a message, enchantress.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“King Patrick of Illinois would like to tell you that you have no right banning singing, or music from his kingdom, and if you do not abandon that law he will help you relinquish your responsibilities.”
Never, in the entire time that he’d been working for her, had Pete seen the enchantress look so very angry.
Or afraid.
Then, she did something truly horrible.
The Baron Pete stumbled through the corridors as fast as his legs could carry him, hurtling through the door to the ballroom, and then collapsing. ‘So much for saving the day dashingly,’ he thought bitterly.
“Why Pete, we HAVE to stop meeting in these kind of situations,” Patrick drawled, cutting the startled silence as Pete got his breath back. “I’m taking she didn’t take too kindly to my little… message, then.
“There’s a mob,” Pete replied. “On the way to the castle. Enchantress is ansty. Wants you dead.”
The silence returned.
“There’s no way you’re going to confront her without me there.”
“But I don’t want you there.”
“I don’t care. I’m coming with you.”
Pete and Patrick had been having this argument for an hour until Spencer eventually got tired of being amused by their perfect match and shouted, “Patrick stop being a stubborn bitch, you’ll need another pair of hands that are good with a sword.”
Patrick had huffed and stormed off. Pete had looked ecstatic and joyfully followed after him.
Patrick, and by extension, Pete, walked through the silent destruction that had happened, and walked, and walked, and walked. Right up to the famed enchantress’ mansion.
She was having tea with the local council, cleverly weaving a spell into their drinks to keep them under her control when Patrick flung open the door.
She only had one chance to defend herself before he had her separated from the rest. He sent her a “bitch, please” look, and then - started singing.
Her shoulders slumped. She’d used so much magic on him and his people in the first place, that she didn’t have any hold over him anymore. She was finished.
Fuck.
Meanwhile back in the castle the sun started to rise. Where the light hit, the garden implements started changing back into gardeners, and the brooms back into maids.
Brendon was secretly terrified, so he hid.
“Brendon! Brendon! Where are you? Everyone’s changing back!” Spencer cried happily, running around trying to find the small teacup. He stopped for a breather, after running up all the steps in the west wing, and he heard sobbing. After finding the source, he gingerly picked up the teacup.
“Brendon, what’s wrong?”
“I-I-I don’t wannaaa,” he hiccupped. “D-d-d-don’t wan-wanna be human.”
“It’s not that bad,” Spencer softly comforted.
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND,” Brendon shouted. “I MIGHT NOT TURN OUT RIGHT. I’m broken. What if I’m broken when I turn human?” He gestured to his chip. “What if that means i miss something vital? And then I don’t live anymore?”
Spencer suddenly understood his terror.
“What if I’m not right in the head?” the poor teacup whispered. “If I die, I want you to know -”
A shaft of light suddenly penetrated the room and Brendon arched his back, groaning. “I love y-“
“BRENDON!” Spencer cried. “NO!”
But it was too late. The light had hit him, lifting him out of Spencer’s lap, and creating sparks so bright he couldn’t look anymore. He wasn’t sure who it was who screamed, but then the light was dimming, and he found he could see again.
“I love you too” he sniffled to the empty floor.
Spencer had done the only thing he felt he could do.
He’d left.
It was two weeks after his last day in the Illinios kingdom, and he was still sat unmoving in his City apartment, owned by the motherly Mrs Mac.
Three days later, there was a shadow across his doorway. With eyes red from constant crying, passing out, then crying again, he looked up.
Gasped.
“Brendon?”
accomplished
ecstatic
depressed
apathetic
angry
amused
uncomfortable
crushed
bouncy
anxious
creative
pessimistic
excited